South Wales engineering business aims to fill skills gap

Mollart Engineering in South West Wales is doing its bit to bridge a skills gap in the region by hiring more apprentices. Apprentices will work in the aerospace, nuclear, oil and gas, semiconductor and telecommunications industries.

Director Wayne Thomas said young apprentices were at the forefront of the company’s growth. A former apprentice himself, he said: “It’s good our apprentices can make parts but now they have a financial understanding of our business and understand the costings and timings of the work they are doing. We will have a long term problem in the industry if companies like us don’t invest in apprenticeships.”

Liam Jeffreys, apprenticeship training co-ordinator and production engineer, said: “We are at a situation now where older apprentices are helping younger ones, something we didn’t see before. We have a range of apprentices at different levels. We want to take on more, so when those complete their fourth year we have more coming in. The aim is to employ all of them. The apprenticeships supply them with specific product and company knowledge. Where we see there are areas apprentices can improve on, we take time to focus on those areas. It is not a case of training them up so they then go elsewhere.”